Looking for Arthropods

Today we visited Betsy Caughlin Donnelly Park to work with the Truckee Meadows Park Foundation and to learn more about arthropods. Students had already done some initial studies on arthropods so the trip focused on finding arthropods and learning more about their local habitats.

The kids were persistent! Despite the challenge of finding the arthropods, the students spent over an hour, lifting rocks, shaking trees, and using aspirators to collect what they could locate.

Apart from the scientific aims, students are also learning more about being citizen scientists and how the general public can help with data collection.

Learning how clocks measure the Sun’s movement

Today we learned how to build a sun dial and measure the Sun’s apparent movement. The study began with learning about why people needed to measure time and how Egyptians, measuring the number of finger segments in two hands settled on 24 hours in a day. If you don’t know how the Egyptians did this, it would be a great question for your kid.

A Visit from NevadaTeach

Today we got a visit from University of Nevada Reno students and the NevadaTeach program. It was a chance to work with engineering standards and learn to use the Richter scale by modeling earthquakes.

The NevadaTeach program is a great way of getting science and math students into Washoe’s classrooms.

Shadow Tracking

Today the students went outside to learn how their shadow changes throughout the day. In the morning students traced their shadow and four hours later they returned to the identical spot to make another tracing. Students then explained how their shadow changed based on the orientation of the sun.

Exploration: How much water is in the world?

Today we we used estimations, graphing and calculations to determine how much salt water versus fresh water there is in the world. Based on the student predictions and the results, there was a lot of academic growth!

Gomm’s Visit to the Spanish Springs Quarry

Today the students in Room360 got to visit the Martin Marietta Spanish Springs Rock Quarry. The team at the quarry was great and allowed students to tour the facility, learn about the work they do, and hear more about the quarry’s role in construction throughout Northern Nevada.

NevadaTeach Leads Room360 through an Engineering Experience

Led by NevadaTeach students from the University of Nevada Reno, Room360 explored the differences of building structures in topsoil, sand, and rock. The NevadaTeach students used a lesson from Engineering is Elementary to guide the students through the scientific process and to allow access to the engineering standards within the Nevada Academic Content Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Investigating the Earth and the Sun

Our investigation of the Earth and the Sun began today with this focus question: How and why does your shadow change during the day. This is the launch for our studies that include a survey of the solar system, a look at our atmosphere, a focus on the Earth’s surface and defining characteristics of the Earth.

Below are images from our first investigation in which we traced our shadows at 11:20 and again at 2:40.

A Visit from NevadaTeach to Learn about Isopods

With facilitation from NevadaTeach, students learned more about isopods and hypothesized about the conditions isopods would most prefer living in. The University of Nevada Reno students did a great job leading the students through an experiment to verify and refine their understandings.